


Hindsight

by pendots



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: A tiny bit of angst as an excuse for mostly fluff, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Day Two, M/M, Victuuri Week 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 22:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9628193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendots/pseuds/pendots
Summary: "I'll just watch over him without saying anything."(In which Victor can travel back in time, but he can't interfere.)(Victuuri Week 2017 Day 2: Traveling. Prompt: AU - Time Travel.)





	

It was always silent when he went back.

Something about the playback must get garbled with time; maybe things, if he could have heard them, would play in reverse.

It hardly mattered, though. Victor was watching himself dance on the ice, and even if he couldn’t hear the sonorous tones of Italian opera, he knew the notes by heart. It had consumed him for the last half-year of his life, so it was impossible not to hear the music swirling around his chest.

He could see the crowd applauding, saw the enraptured gazes fixed upon him, but he frowned. He could have landed that quadruple flip much more smoothly. The emotion that flowed through his movements wasn’t quite reaching his eyes. His step sequence wasn’t quite fluid enough.

His eyes narrowed in the silence. The past-Victor was bowing on the ice, his smile stalling on his face. _I need to get better,_ Victor thought. He knew that past-Victor was thinking the same thing.

“Victor.”

Yakov’s voice shattered the quiet and Victor reopened his eyes. He stretched his fingers out against his knees, pressing them there and reminding himself where he existed. Victor didn’t look up as he responded. “Yes?”

“It’s time to head out. Will you talk to Yuri?” Yakov asked gruffly.

When Victor finally rose his gaze, Yakov wasn’t making eye contact. Yakov hadn’t known about Victor’s ability for long, but he still didn’t seem to know how to handle it. Saying nothing was often Yakov’s best expression of caring, though, so Victor let it go. He stood slowly, still regaining his bearings. “I’ll speak to him. I looked back at his free program, so I can give him some pointers.”

Yakov shifted uncomfortably at “looked back,” but he just nodded and walked away.

Yuri joined them as they walked, having just escaped from a reporter and, likely, scores of Yuri’s Angels. He shot Victor a quick glance that Victor didn’t originally notice, but he would see it when he went back a few hours later. The trio headed into the lobby, the air tense for a few moments. The silence was getting too quiet for present time, so Victor spoke. “Yuri,” he began. “About your free performance, the step sequence could use more-”

“I won, so who cares?” Yuri cut in, scoffing. “Quit nagging, Victor.”

Victor said nothing. Truthfully, he didn’t need to be a time-traveler to have seen that dismissal coming, so he decided not to take it to heart. He looked around the room while Yakov gave the long-practiced “you-can’t-talk-like-that-forever” speech. Reporters were clustered around other skaters, each engrossed in their own conversations. Surprisingly, no one was tuned-in to the Russian-accented drama echoing around the room, so Victor turned his head again.

Wait.

He glanced back around. A young man in glasses was staring at him, his eyes glowing as if starstruck. A lanyard hung around his neck, identifying him as a skater, but Victor didn’t recognize him. There were so many skaters, past and present, that Victor was having trouble remembering them all anymore.

“A commemorative photo?” Victor guessed, turning to face the only one watching him. The remark caused the two people next to the young skater to turn as well, seeming surprised that Victor was speaking in their direction. Victor waved a hand welcomingly. “Sure.”

The young man, instead of vibrating with excitement and shuffling over, seemed to crumble under the weight of Victor’s invitation. His shoulders hunched in and he turned on the spot, dragging his suitcase behind him without another word. The man who had been behind him—Victor thought he recognized him as an announcer—exclaimed the skater’s name. “Katsuki-kun? You don’t want a photo with Victor?”

_Katsuki-kun?_ Victor thought, his hand lowering back to his side when the doors slid shut behind the retreating skater. _That name…_

Victor didn’t wait a moment. He turned back towards Yuri and Yakov, who were back to ignoring and lecturing respectively, and shut his eyes tightly. The familiar feeling of air rushing past him floated through him, and the buzzing murmur of the room snapped into silence.

_There._ The same young man was skating to center ice for his free skate, his face twisted in a nervous grimace. The skater’s name flashed onto a screen, informing Victor of the young man’s full name: “Yuuri Katsuki.”

The music must have begun, but Yuuri seemed shaky on the start. Victor frowned. _Why did his coach let him go out there so nervous? He should have talked to him…_

Yuuri’s first fall made Victor physically flinch—or perhaps it was a mental cringe, as his physical form wasn’t truly here. The take-off had been beautiful, promising a beautiful flip, but Yuuri seemed to be struck with panic in an instant and his landing was off. His leg wobbled and he hit the ice, only completing a single rotation before he was down. He stayed on the ice a moment longer than he needed to. Victor’s brow furrowed.

Yuuri’s expression wasn’t one of determination to save the program; it was despondent. He’d already given up.

Victor returned to reality with a quiet exhale. Yakov was still waving his hands at Yuri. Something in Victor—an inquisitiveness that he hadn’t felt about another person in years—was stirring as sound returned to the world around him.

-

It had been a long time since Victor wanted to go back in time to see another person’s past, but after the banquet, a lot of things had changed.

Victor would have been embarrassed to tell anyone how many times he had gone back to watch the moment where Yuuri Katsuki had leapt into his arms and sing-songed a coaching request. It took three times before he noticed how his own face had softened at Yuuri’s words, but he felt an echo of the blush when he realized it.

But Yuuri had disappeared after the banquet, seeming to vanish from the skating world in the process. And Victor… Well. He couldn’t accept that. He had to know why.

By the time Victor had decided exactly when he wanted to go back and see a past-Yuuri, however, he was getting a burst of notifications on his phone, many containing iterations of his name, the name of his free program, and…

And Yuuri Katsuki.

And suddenly Victor knew exactly where—or rather, when—he wanted to go.

-

“Please watch,” Yuuri said, standing on the ice of a rink in little Hasetsu, Japan.

Victor couldn’t hear him, but he could feel the sincerity in Yuuri’s speech in his shy gaze and the gentle dip of his head. It didn’t matter if Yuuri asked him to watch or not. His eyes were glued to his starting pose, so familiar and yet somehow seeming to have new life breathed into it.

This time when the music started, Yuuri seemed enveloped within it, completely in tune and with more emotion than Victor had ever managed to convey. He felt his heart flutter when Yuuri’s gaze slid past him, unaware of any more viewers than the single woman who was visible. Yuuri pulled off jumps with practiced ease, downgrading a few of the more complicated ones but still capturing the power underlying the bittersweet movements.

Simply put, it was beautiful.

Victor was enraptured. He was trapped between wanting to exist in this moment for the rest of his life and going immediately to Yuuri’s side and making good on that request from the banquet. Yuuri’s startled and bashful expression as he saw his friend’s rightfully enthusiastic reaction was what made the decision.

Right now, Yuuri couldn’t see how much that program had affected Victor. He needed to know.

-

Victor couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone back in time now.

Right now, right here, with Yuuri practicing jumps on the ice before him in a St. Petersburg rink, Victor was delighted to be in the present.

-

“So you said you could go back in time, right?” Yuuri asked him one night, cuddled against him on the couch.

Victor turned away from the movie that he truthfully hadn’t been paying much attention to in the first place. “That’s right,” he answered, nuzzling his head against the top of Yuuri’s. “Why do you ask?”

Yuuri hummed beneath his breath. “I’m just curious about something.”

Victor waited patiently for him to speak again. He was willing to wait; he had all the time in the world.

He felt Yuuri smile against his shoulder. “If you could go back and change anything… What would it be?” He tilted his gaze up to Victor’s, his eyes sparkling with gentle amusement.

And for the life of him, with Yuuri smiling up at him with pure carefree happiness, Victor couldn’t think of a single thing that he wanted to be different. A million times before, he had wished for things to be different, had wished that he could change the past that he was only spectating. But now he never went back anymore, just stayed in the present by Yuuri’s side. If all his past had led to this point, it had been worth it.

“I don’t think I would change a thing,” Victor murmured. He leaned his head down towards Yuuri’s, gently giving him a butterfly kiss. He reveled in Yuuri’s tickled laughter.

“ _Victor_!” he exclaimed. “C’mon, don’t give me such a cliché answer. _Anything_!”

Victor chuckled. “Alright, alright.” He sighed contentedly.

What would he change? Everything that had happened to this point had led him to Yuuri, so Victor would be loath to change something for fear that he would affect his and Yuuri’s overall timeline. What could Victor do differently for himself alone?

He smiled. “Maybe I’d stay in the present a bit more than I did. I should have tried harder not to stay too stuck in the past.”

Yuuri beamed up at him. He leaned up to give him a loving peck. “I’m glad you’re in the present now.”

Victor held Yuuri a bit closer. “Me, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for an amazing response to my first Victuuri Week entry! ;u;   
> Feel free to come scream with me on my yoi sideblog!: scarfyuuri
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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